Tag Archives: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Thank you for the very well thought out answer. I really enjoyed it. I did have another question (if I may), in general, how do we as a base know what is unreliable information or not when it comes to our narrators because from what I’ve always gathered, they have the earnest desire to convey the truth as they can see it. Armand sure, cannon liar, but Louis in IWTV had nothing but genuine intention and no reason to lie. Thank you for your time, you’re awesome ^^

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You’re so welcome, glad you enjoyed it! Answering asks is so much fun for me, it makes me consider my own current and previous thoughts, sometimes I even ask around privately for more ideas… and try to write it out as best I can, it gives me an excuse to make fresh gifs/memes, sometimes it inspires others to make fanworks… and I always like to hear back from the original asker that the effort was appreciated *u* ((No, you only get one question per quarter. Pffft. Of course you can ask more!))

“in general, how do we as a base know what is unreliable information or not when it comes to our narrators because from what I’ve always gathered, they have the earnest desire to convey the truth as they can see it.”

You would think that, but just like in real life, people can narrate a story for their own motivations.

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TL;DR:

The characters telling their stories don’t always have the earnest desire to convey the truth, so it’s not always clear what the reliable information is! When we have accounts of the same event where the details align, that seems to be the best way to confirm it’s canon, bc even Anne Rice can’t always answer fan’s questions about canon stuff to everyone’s satisfaction. 

When there’s conflicting details, we have to rely on headcanons, which ppl can choose to agree on or not, hence the fandom phrase, #Your Headcanon May Vary.

For example of facts aligning: I think we can all agree that Armand was the unspoken leader at the Theatre des Vampires bc Lestat left him there in a position of authority in TVL, which is where Louis found him some 80 years later in IWTV, confirming that that was Armand’s role there.

In the scene above,

IDK at that point in canon whether Lestat believes in a God, but if not, he’s deliberately lying to Claudia, bc she’s never going to see her mother again. Even if he does believe in God, he still doesn’t know where his dead go! He’s trying to answer her in a way that will keep her calm and complacent. He knows Claudia’s mother is dead, he saw the corpse in the movie. But she is still a child and he doesn’t want to scare her or depress her, or make her feel guilty about killing, which she just did! 

I also think he’s a little taken aback bc she’s asking him for the whereabouts of her biological mother just minutes after he turned her into a vampire, a process that’s been compared to birth. It’s the most intimate act a vampire can experience. His smile falls right after she asks bc in a way it seems like he’s a deflated that she wants her biological mother, it’s like she’s already saying, “You’re not my REAL dad!” It might also remind him of his own mother who abandoned him ;A;

Re: Lestat P.1: In TVL, Lestat tells Armand: 

“I never lie,” I said offhand. “At least not to those I don’t love.” 

I’m still not 100% clear on this, bc of the double negatives. Can we translate it to “I’m honest with those I don’t love.” –>  “I lie to those I love.” ? He spent some 65 years lying by omission to Louis and Claudia about the other vampires, and all the secrets he knew. So who’s to say he doesn’t also lie to his readers, “those I don’t love” ? How much does he really love his readers? 

Re: Louis: I’ve always felt, and there are others who share this opinion, who gave me this opinion, that IWTV was dictated to Daniel from Louis with the intention of pissing Lestat off enough that he would rise from wherever he was hiding and find Louis. While I don’t think Louis intentionally LIED, I do think he might have embellished some things, exaggerated here and there, left out certain things, in order to achieve his goal. And it WORKED because…

Re: Lestat P.2: The Vampire Lestat was Lestat’s rebuttal to IWTV, containing all the secrets he couldn’t tell Louis during their time together, so I’m inclined to believe that Lestat earnestly wanted to correct the record and win Louis back, since he still loved Louis.

Re: Armand: TBH, I don’t know Armand’s story well enough, what I believe and what I don’t, in all of canon, to say that he’s a liar. I think, like Louis and Lestat, he embellishes, he lies by omission, and he tells people things when he wants a certain reaction out of them. He lied to his coven when he was a leader all those years since he never really believed in serving Satan. Or did he? It seems like he didn’t. 

There is a particular scene that Armand describes in TVA that is questionable, as to whether it happened.

How he tried to “help” Claudia the night she died (fanart by @sheepskeleton here, if you dare, it’s gorey). Personally, I sometimes believe it’s the truth bc Armand does like… experiments! But then I also remember how David was flirting excessively with Armand in that book, and so it’s possible that “this story was just something that Armand made up; somehow trying to intimidate the others, displaying the cruelty he could be capable of.” (quote from @annabellioncourt​)

You know in Interview With The Vampire Louis talks about having ran into Lestat broken in their old home – while in The Vampire Lestat Lestat says it never happened? What’s your thoughts on it? Was Lestat too damaged to remember at the time? Was Louis kicking sand in Lestat’s face to get him to come to him?

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Ooooh good question! In IWTV, Louis says that he did visit Lestat (and it was in the movie).

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We have #unreliable narrators and it’s hard to say whether it happened, or happened in a different way than described… 

They do agree that Lestat was in hiding and pretty decrepit. Louis describes Lestat as being holed up in some crumbling old house some short distance away from their old Rue Royale flat, which Lestat does confirm in TVL:

“And I spent the last years of the 1800s in complete seclusion in the old Garden District a block from the Lafayette Cemetery, in the finest of my houses, slumbering beneath towering oaks.”

I answered it more in depth on this post, in which I said that I trusted Louis’ account. Lestat refusing to kill a baby would be in character for him. That Louis would invent this just whole scene to provoke Lestat out of hiding is less in character for him, but possible. He did leave a lot out, and leaving out information is lying by omission. 

Your headcanon may be that it happened, and someone else’s may be that it didn’t. Even if AR says one way or the other, there are readers who will still hold onto their own headcanon. #Your headcanon may vary on this one.

Did Louis actually visit Lestat in IWTV when Lestat went back to New Orleans to rot in his house? Because Lestat didn’t mention that Louis had visited him in “The vampire lestat”. Lestat only said that Armand visited him and that he knew that Louis was in New Orleans. Thanks for clearing up :)

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Ooooh good question! In IWTV, Louis says that he did visit Lestat (and it was in the movie). 

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We actually don’t know if it happened :-

  1. book!IWTV has Louis following a young vampire to Lestat’s door.
  2. In the Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat says it never happened.

We have discrepancy in canon. Your headcanon may be that it happened, and someone else’s may be that it didn’t. With Louis’ book, was he telling his tale to try to call out Lestat? Maybe he knew that inventing a scene like this might provoke Lestat to respond. If so, it worked, Lestat wrote TVL as a response to IWTV. Also, Louis told his story to Daniel, who then had to send it to his editor(s), so maybe it was invented by someone other than Louis for whatever reason. 

So who do I believe? Umm, I don’t think Louis is a liar, and I don’t think anyone invented it. Lestat has said, “I never lie, at least not to those I don’t love.” which means that he DOES lie to those he loves. 

I’m going w/ Louis on this and saying that it happened as Louis described it.

1. Book!IWTV:

“Because shortly after that I saw a vampire in New Orleans, a sleek white-faced young man walking alone on the broad sidewalks of St. Charles Avenue…” (this mystery vampire kills a woman and takes her baby to a shabby old house where he meets up with another vampire) “My eyes widened as I studied this stooped and shivering vampire whose rich blond hair hung down in loose waves covering his face… I saw clearly, unmistakably, the profile of Lestat, that smooth skin now devoid of even the faintest trace of his old scars.” 

BTW, it’s implied that that young vampire was one of Lestat’s own fledglings (another mystery fledgling?!):

“ `You all leave me!’ he whined now in a thin, high-pitched voice.“

(Louis taps at the window)

…” `It’s Louis! Louis!’ he said. `Let him in’ And he gestured frantically, like an invalid, for the young `nurse’ to obey. … and I could see the tears welling in his eyes…How baffling and awful it was, this smoothfaced, shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone.”

2. HOWEVER…

In Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat calls Louis a liar, and I think he’s referring to the whole visit scene:

“Ah, that makes you out to be a perfect liar,” I said furiously. “You described my weeping in your miserable memoir in a scene which we both know did not take place!”